The scene in Annapolis Junction on Sept. 27 might have seemed surreal without the knowledge that the National Security Agency was involved.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held, not to unveil a new residential development or corporate headquarters, but to inaugurate a warehouse and adjoining room with white walls and a white tiled floor.

The occasion spurred such pomp more for what wasn't seen: Soundproof walls, special access controls and secure communications systems, hallmarks of a special class of office space used by technology companies helping protect some of the nation's most sensitive secrets.

Essex Corp., one of the region's growing base of defense contractors, is using the 51,000 square feet of space to expand a systems integration contract it was awarded late last year by NSA, the secretive signals intelligence agency in Fort Meade.

About 170 Essex employees and subcontractors will be housed at the site, a few miles from Essex's Columbia headquarters.

The publicly held company would not have been able to land the added work were it not able to find highly secure office space sought by contractors trafficking in sensitive communications: SCIF space.

That is an acronym for secured, comparmentalized information facility. Essex Corp. CEO Len Moodispaw called the opening of its new SCIF (pronounced "skiff") facility a "major milestone" in the expansion of the company and the solutions it is able to provide.

Continued availability of SCIF space will factor in the region's ability to tap the National Security Agency as a valued customer and bolster Maryland's high-tech sector at a time when the NSA is increasingly looking outside its Fort Meade gates for help in sending and intercepting intelligence.

Economic development officials and commercial real estate brokers say developers are meeting demand with new SCIF space. Anne Arundel County Economic Development Corp. CEO Bill Badger said two projects alone in his county could create up to 500,000 square feet of SCIF space.

"Post 9-11, SCIF is back with a vengeance," said Dennis Lane, vice president of Ryan Commercial Real Estate Services, which represented the owners of the building Essex had retrofitted to meet its security needs.

Fueled by increased homeland security spending, the NSA's internal growth means the agency is moving contractors out of Fort Meade and into the commercial marketplace. State government officials studied the availability of SCIF space with an eye on possibly crafting policy to address a shortage, if one existed, but think the private sector is picking up the slack.

A bigger obstacle for small companies angling to land NSA business is getting their employees through the agency's rigorous and lengthy security clearance process, economic development officials concluded.

Johnny Flores, director of operations for Catonsville-based TechGuard Security LLC, said his company is in the final stages of wrapping up its clearances.

After that, the availability of SCIF space will become a concern for his young company as it rolls out a new firewall technology.

"It's very difficult to find SCIF space," he said. "What's out there is more legacy. You have to spend funds to bring it up to standard."

Essex would not say what it spent on its Annapolis Junction space. But the spare trappings generated excitement among the hundreds of elected officials, NSA staffers and company employees witnessing the ribbon cutting -- with photographs confined to certain areas, if not banned outright.

Harry D. Gatanas, the NSA's senior acquisition executive and a key industry contact, said during the Sept. 27 ceremony at Essex's new building that the company and others like it have the "talent and agility" to help the agency quickly execute new projects as it seeks to monitor terrorist organizations and other enemies abroad.

The NSA spent $2 billion with Maryland contractors in 2003 and expects that number to grow.

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